Dark against luminous matter around isolated central galaxies: a comparative study between modern surveys and Illustris-TNG

TL;DR

This study compares weak lensing and stellar halo measurements around isolated central galaxies from observations and the Illustris-TNG simulation, revealing good overall agreement but notable differences in satellite distributions and halo extensions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison between observational data and TNG simulation predictions for galaxy halos and satellite distributions, highlighting areas of agreement and discrepancy.

Findings

Good agreement between observations and TNG300 in lensing signals.

Red ICGs host more massive halos and satellites than blue ICGs in observations.

TNG predicts more satellites around blue ICGs and more extended stellar halos than observed.

Abstract

Based on independent shear measurements using the DECaLS/DR8 imaging data, we measure the weak lensing signals around isolated central galaxies (ICGs) from SDSS/DR7 at $z\sim0.1$. The projected stellar mass density profiles of surrounding satellite galaxies are further deduced, using photometric sources from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey (pDR3). The signals of ICGs $+$ their extended stellar halos are taken from Wang et al.(2021). All measurements are compared with predictions by the Illustris-TNG300-1 simulation. We find, overall, a good agreement between observation and TNG300. In particular, a correction to the stellar mass of massive observed ICGs is applied based on the calibration of He et al.(2013), which brings a much better agreement with TNG300 predicted lensing signals at $\log_{10}M_\ast/M_\odot>11.1$. In real observation, red ICGs are hosted by more massive dark matter halos, have more satellites and more extended stellar halos than blue ICGs at fixed stellar mass. However, in TNG300 there are more satellites around blue ICGs at fixed stellar mass, and the outer stellar halos of red and blue ICGs are similar. The stellar halos of TNG galaxies are more extended compared with real observed galaxies, especially for blue ICGs with $\log_{10}M_\ast/M_\odot>10.8$. We find the same trend for TNG100 galaxies and for true halo central galaxies. The tensions between TNG and real galaxies might indicate that satellite disruptions are stronger in TNG. In both TNG300 and observation, satellites approximately trace the underlying dark matter distribution beyond $0.1R_{200}$, but the fraction of total stellar mass in TNG300 does not show the same radial distribution as real galaxies.